Where I'm from, and in the various countries I've lived in (including the US), I've met plenty of people who for one reason or another couldn't - bar sheer luck - get a job that pays anything decent. Be it lack of connections, no idea how to build those connections, lack of ambition, lack of education, whatever. There were good reasons, and probably not so great ones, but in practice I seldom got the feel it was about good spending habits or slacking.

If anything, and anecdotally, I probably met more people with terrible saving habits when interacting with segments of the population that were rather well off to begin with - that is, they had excess cash or the potential for it. The "worst" example I can think of was a patent attorney who charged $500/hour, worked a single client per month to make ends meet, and enjoyed life the rest of the time. $10/hour or $2/hour people just don't do that insofar as I've interacted with them - and I did quite a bit while traveling. The "worst" I've encountered on their end were people deciding to work less hours after they got a raise because, you know, they only need so much to make ends meet and were happy with earning just that; and no assets/low income folks getting subprime loans just before the housing crisis.

Admittedly it's only a small unrepresentative sample at the end of the day, but I honestly never got the impression the low wage earners I interacted with were slackers or spending like there was no tomorrow. Mostly (if only potentially) mid- to high wage earners were, and they oftentimes had some savings or could earn money in a heartbeat if they really needed to. They're far from the majority of the population.